TDOR

The Line

Click to enlarge this story of two young women.



From subnormality.

I've been told in various comments on my blog that I feel a sense of responsibility about matters of injustice. That I always did. I suppose that's true. But it all comes down to this : Which side are you on?

And I'm not facing the guillotine.

Coming soon to an economy near you

From CBS News:

It's another record-high for the U.S. National Debt which today topped the $12-trillion mark. Divided evenly among the U.S. population, it amounts to $38,974.34 for every man, woman and child.

Technically, the debt hit the new high yesterday, but it was posted on the Treasury Department website just after 3:00 p.m. ET today. The exact calculation of the debt is a 16-digit tongue-twister and red-ink tsunami: $12,031,299,186,290.07

This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year's record high.

A Lunar Rainbow

First, about Project "M" :

Project M is a JSC Engineering Directorate led mission to put a lander on the moon with a robot within a 1,000 days starting Jan 1., 2010.
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When will Project M begin? Next month? Next year? No, Project M has been “go” since Monday, November 9th.

Why? From Air & Space Smithsonian

Five weeks ago a crater from the LCROSS impact formed on the Moon. The pre-impact build-up had been sensational, but the actual event was largely invisible to observers on Earth. It was a different story on the Moon. The slowly growing impact ejecta curtain threw water ice particles and vapor far out into space. When the crater formed, flying ice particles could have refracted the glare of unfiltered sunlight into an “ice rainbow,” similar to those seen through very high altitude clouds on Earth. For a very brief time, a rainbow might have been visible to an observer standing on the lunar surface. And like its namesake, this rainbow is a promise – a promise that the Moon is habitable. It is an invitation to humanity to extend man’s domain to our nearest planetary neighbor.

The LCROSS science team’s initial analysis of ejected impact plume data found evidence for water. It appears that several other species, particularly some carbon substances also found in the cores of comets, may be present. The new results suggest that some lunar polar volatiles may have their origins from outside the Moon, deposited there over millions of years by the impact of comets and asteroids.

It means that apart from (possibly) a Gamma Burster, we as a species will survive. There is another place, apart from Earth, where we can live. It has the chemicals. It has the (solar) power. We can make subterranean habitats, and apart from any long-term physiological problems due to low gravity, we can live there, grow and expand. Even a low-gravity problem can be solved with centrifuges with slightly canted floors. Ones a kilometer in diameter wouldn't have to spin very fast, and could be built as large underground railways with carriages the size of large rooms on tilted tracks, moving at a constant speed.

(Hmmmm... I wonder if that idea's worth a patent... haven't seen it in any SF literature....)

It means that a dinosaur-killer only has a few centuries at most to get us.

Third Time Unlucky?

I live in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

Twice now, the local legislature has enacted provisions that would parallel the "Civil Unions" or "Civil Partnerships" that are found in other countries, which are deemed an acceptable alternative to marriage when it comes to same-sex relationships, and marriage itself is forbidden.

Twice, the liberal (ie Right of Centre) Federal Government has stepped in, disallowing such legislation. They can do that, because the ACT is a territory, not a state. It's about the only significant difference between the two concepts. Such intervention has only been used three times in Australia's history, all by the previous government. Once against the Northern Territory's legislation to legalise euthenasia under very strictly limited conditions, and twice against the ACT on this issue.

The Constitution gives power to the Federal Government over marriage law: that at least is consistent, even if the various states and territories differ when it comes to deciding what sex someone who is TS or IS is.

Now we have "hope and change", a Labor (ie Left of Centre) government. One with a strong rusted-in Irish Catholic Socialist faction.... and a Prime Minister who takes his Christian Beliefs very seriously, as he's said on multiple occasions.

From the Canberra Times :

Greens leader Bob Brown has vowed to lead the charge against any move by federal Labor to disallow the new civil union laws the ACT Legislative Assembly passed this week.

The ACT Government backed a Greens Bill which gave same-sex couples the right to legally binding ceremonies under the civil union laws the ACT Labor Government introduced last year.

However, the new laws are likely to be disallowed by the Federal Government, which believes such provisions ''undermine and mimic'' marriage between a man and woman. Senator Brown, who is openly gay, said yesterday he would ''find it incredible if Kevin Rudd simply rubber-stamped John Howard on this issue''.
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''He [Mr Rudd] would genuinely need to inform his Labor representatives in the Senate ahead of time because they will cop it, and I certainly will lead a Senate disallowance motion if it comes to that.'' Senator Brown said it was unreasonable for territory laws to be subject to federal interference.

The ACT Government and Greens believe the legislation passed in the Assembly on Wednesday is consistent with the Commonwealth's constitutional right to legislate exclusively with respect to marriage. Just to be sure, the amendments included a provision that excluded from civil union ceremonies any couple that ''may marry under the Marriage Act''. However, this provision has angered one same-sex marriage lobby group, Equal Love, which argues it could also exclude transgender people.

Equal Love's Canberra spokesman John Kloprogge said, ''Our concern there was that it was unnecessary and exclusionary and would prohibit heterosexual couples and transgender and intersex couples from having access to official ceremonies. ''The ACT Government has taken the wrong policy approach by putting forward a flawed Bill just to appease the Federal Government.''

Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury, who introduced the Bill, said his advice was that transgender persons would not be excluded by his legislation unless they had legally changed their sex, as this would entitle them to enter into a marriage under the Marriage Act.

I'm still married: but it's a really good question as to whether I've changed my legal sex. From the Federal viewpoint, I have - the cardinal document is my immigration record. At the Territory level though, they go by the Birth Certificate. And as my UK BC is unchangeable because technically I'm Intersexed rather than Trans... I haven't.

So it looks like there's a possibility that, had I wished to dissolve my existing marriage, I could either get a same-sex Civil Partnership with a man under territory law, as I'm deemed male as far as the ACT is concerned, or get married to him under Federal Law, as to the Federal government, I'm female. The alternative is that I could get enter a "heterosexual" civil union with another woman, (it wouldn't be "same-sex" under ACT law as I'm male to them, remember) while being prohibited under Federal law from re-marrying the woman I'm married to currently if we divorce.

This illustrates once more the whole foetid absurdity of these legislative acrobatics, the loops, convolutions and exceptions, the lack of common-sense and basic humanity when it comes to institutionalising bigotry. Because stripped of all pretence and hypocrisy, that's what it is.

While claiming to "preserve the sanctity" of what I believe firmly is a genuinely sacred institution, the bigots make of it a mockery and a farce. Any argument that would otherwise be plausible about "preserving traditional concepts" of marriage, that it's a matter of respect for pure, simple religious belief is exploded by this whole nonsense. They just don't like gays, and don't like them so much, that annihilation of our basic human rights is acceptable. "Collateral damage" if they're charitable, a "Consummation devoutly to be wished" if they're not.

And incidentally, once again, Trans and Intersexed people get the shaft.

Xoie (pronounced Zoe)

High Drama in the Mojave. From MSNBC :

The contest reached its climax on Friday, when Masten's Xoie rocket made its million-dollar flight. "The drama has just been unbelievable," Stuart Witt, general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port, told me when it was over.

The rules for the Lunar Lander Challenge's Level 2 contest required rocketeers to guide their remote-controlled craft through a complete round trip between one launch pad and a different boulder-strewn pad more than 50 meters (164 feet) away. Each leg of the flight had to last at least 180 seconds, and the rocket had to rise at least 50 meters above the ground. All this had to be done before time ran out on a 135-minute period.

Friday's launch came after days of ups and downs: Communication glitches twice ruled out launch attempts on Wednesday, and a fire that broke out on the launch vehicle spoiled the Xoie rocket's maiden flight on Thursday. The blaze was quickly put out, but not quickly enough to avoid doing damage to Xoie. That damage meant Xoie couldn't get all the way through the required course.

On Thursday night, the Lunar Lander Challenge judges said they would let the Masten team make repairs to the rocket overnight and give them one more chance to fly. The team worked all night to get Xoie back in shape.
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The program, one of NASA's Centennial Challenges, was aimed at encouraging the development of new rocket technologies that could potentially be used in future spacecraft. The kind of power required to win the contest would also be enough for a lunar landing and ascent. But the current contestants don't expect to provide NASA with honest-to-goodness lunar landers anytime soon. Rather, they see the prize as an extra incentive to build vehicles capable of taking up suborbital space tourists, or putting small payloads into orbit.
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Scorpius' average landing accuracy on Sept. 12 was about 34 inches (86 centimeters). The unofficial figures for Xoie were around 11 inches (28 centimeters) for the first leg of the round trip, and 4 inches (10 centimeters) for the second. The resulting average of 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) was enough to move Xoie ahead of Scorpius.

So private enterprise has not one, but two capable proof-of-principle demonstrators for the technology for Lunar landing. And all for the cost to the US Taxpayer of less than $2 million.

While the significance of a "proof-of-principle" prototype should not be over-estimated, and costs of a production model (even for cargo) would be many hundreds of times greater... it's still a small fraction of what it would have taken NASA to achieve. A very small fraction.

It's beginning to look like the relatively simple problems in Rocket Science are best solved by this philosophy. Certainly it should be tried. Scaling it up to hard problems, like high-capacity boosters is another matter, but there's lots of such (relatively) easy problems as this one which will require solution for us to go into space - and stay there. And it looks like we can solve them for 1% of the money that we thought it would cost.

Priorities

As reported in the New York Times about the events at Ford Hood, General Casey said:

"Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength....And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

This "diversity" doesn't include Gay or lesbian soldiers of course. Far better to have someone with Islamofascist sympathies who might engage in a massacre than have loyal Americans in the US Army - if said loyal Americans are Gay.

From the AP some have a different view about diversity:

"The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it's just a fact," (Oklahoma) Rep. Sally Kern said recently to a gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol.

"Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades. So it's the death knell in this country.

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat," she said.

She's not alone.

(Colorado) Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, went further, quoting Bible verses to argue that the state should not be condoning homosexual relationships. He called such relationships a sin, equal in some sense to murder and adultery, and noted one Bible passage says homosexuality is punishable by death.

And in Utah, Senator Chris Buttars said:

They’re mean! They want to talk about being nice — they’re the meanest buggers I ever seen. It’s just like the Moslems. Moslems are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side. And the gays are totally taken over by the radical side.
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And I believe that they’re, internally, they’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of.

Now you may believe that Homosexuality is a sin, based upon religious convictions. But to reject Gays from serving their country, while allowing Islamofascists to infiltrate because they're a lesser danger... seems to me to have your priorities askew.